Catching Up

Looks like I have fallen a little behind!  With Garden harvest, Fall Fairs, 4-H, and 12 hour work days, I will update the blog tomorrow.  Today was my first free to do my own thing day off in a month!

Garden Overload

Meaty Birds!

We are starting a heritage breed meat flock!  I found a woman selling chicks just the next town over, and on Monday we are picking up 6 Black Jersey Giant hens and a cockerel from a separate bloodline, so we can breed them.

The new additions will go in with the laying hens for now, to be moved to there own henhouse, where they will eat grower ration instead of layer ration like our RIR hens do.  They will be able to range as well, but are also docile and able to take being largely confined during the winter.
Jersey Giants are a slow growing bird, the original slow food, taking about 10 months to hit their dressed weight of 8-10lbs!  Now that is a big bird!  We are now on the prowl for an incubator or simple plans to make one.

I am so excited to start on this venture!  Shawn just decided that he can't bring himself to raise Cornish-X, as every time we go to work with Madeline's Angus calf, we see them laying down eating and pooping, or lurching a few steps before giving up and laying down.  He said he just couldn't invite people out to the farm to see our birds growing, and be proud to be selling barely moving, crap covered birds, just because they finish quick.  With the Jersey Giants, we can breed them, where you can't with Cornish-X.  Ours will produce true to breed.

Now I think I can get the kids to willingly do a little more in the way of farm chores, if it means they are actually raising more than a veggie.

Harvest Begins

Wow!  I guess it has been longer than I thought since I updated.  The garden has been producing well, and I have begun to preserve some of the harvest for winter.  I have blanched and frozen 28, 2 serving bags of beans, made 6 quarts of pickled peppers, and 2 quarts of dill pickles.  Shawn also started selling some of our excess to a high end restaurant in town, and they have taken 70 pounds of baby carrots, 15 quarts of beans, 3 quarts of beets, 10 pounds of cucumbers, and 40 heads of butter crunch lettuce.  We haven't made a fortune selling, but the money has come in handy, and has only been produce that we have an over abundance of.

We also ended up with 4 new hens that we found free on Kijiji.  I believe they are a little older than our original ladies, but are still producing well, so all is good. The man we got them from said that they free ranged, but here, for the first few days, they barely ventured outside of the coop, hanging around the feed tray.  You could tell which eggs were theirs, the yolks were pale, like grocery store eggs.  They have begun to venture out in front and behind the barn, and when Parker discovered a horned tomato worm in the garden, we gave it to them, and they about lost their little chicken minds!

I have 2 dozen eggs in the fridge.  I ate 4 eggs yesterday!  Poached on toast for breakfast, an omelet for lunch, and a poached egg on brown rice served on a bed of sauteed kale.  Yesterday was our first time eating kale, and it was pretty good!  Kale is a super green, and we will be eating it as much as we can while it is still producing.

I found out you can steam and freeze chard, so now we don't have to worry about eating all that we have in the garden while it is still fresh....we are going to have a lot of veggies stored for the winter!  I think it is high time I went out and got some photos from around the farm.  So much has changed!

Veggies

The garden is coming along great.  The hardest part is the waiting.  The lettuce varieties are ready, and we have been eating salad every night.  I'm sure we'll be sick of it soon, but I am trying to no buy any veg from now til next spring.  I better cross my fingers that the stuff that stores or freezes produces well!
The tomato plants are like shrubs, covered with green globes.  There are tiny little cukes on the vines.  The carrots are almost big enough that we can thin them by eating baby carrots.  The cabbage has bounced back from rampaging chicken and a flea beetle attack.  The beets and turnip are well on their way. 
The spinach and arugula both succumbed to the flea beetles, so we have replanted, and the seedlings are doing better.  As soon as we notice that the beetles are back, I break out the organic bug spray, and it seems to knock them back.

There have been a few disappointments this year.  The peas are growing slow.  They should be about done by now, and awaiting a replant.  Instead they have been slow to grow, only about 8 inches tall.  The herbs in the other garden closer to the house have barely come up at all.  The cilantro was slow, and then only about 6 plants came up.  The rest never even germinated.  We tilled the soil, and reseeded.  So far, the basil has shown itself, but thats it!  I was dreaming of food seasoned with my own herbs all winter.  At this rate, I'm going to just buy some potted ones and put them on the window sill!

New Reading

"The practical advice in this exhaustive reference tool includes how to cultivate a garden, buy land, bake bread, raise farm animals, make sausage, can peaches, milk a goat, grow herbs, churn butter, build a chicken coop, catch a pig, cook on a wood stove, and much, much more."

How farm geek have I become??  I totally want this book as soon as it hits the shelves in November!

Thwarted!

We carefully baited 2 live traps with chicken found in the dark recesses of the fridge.  WE placed them near the coop, and hoped for a nocturnal visit from the poultry killer.  Whatever it was, it rolled the traps around the barn yard so the chicken tumbled around inside, and ate all the meat off the bones. The traps sprung, but caught nothing.  I hope the chicken was really old, and the creature gets gut rot.

Tonight, cinder blocks on top of the traps.

Factory Farming Rant

The first animals with hooves that will be raised on this farm will be heritage Berkshire pork.  All factory farming pisses me off to no end, but somehow, gestation caged pigs burn me the most. 

Cheap meat is cheap in $$ at the grocery store only!!  The cost to our health and animal welfare is far higher than we can afford to pay!  We need to vote with our wallets!!  Sure, pastured meat is more expensive!  Eat less meat, have meatless Mondays!  We won't die if we don't have tacos or ribs every night, but a whole bunch of people have died from eating contaminated meat for the factory food system.

Predetors

The boyfriend and I always walk down to the barn in the morning together.  I let the chickens out, he changes the hose over to water the flower bed in front of the barn.

When I opened the door, there was a hen on the ground.  She just looked.....flat, if there is a word to describe it.  Something had gotten in and out of the coop, and killed one of the hens, while the others had to watch.  The coop is 6 feet tall, with heavy mesh vents at the top of the walls, and small windows that tip in all of 4 inches, right up under the roof.  I am not sure what could have gotten in there, but it did. 

Shawn buried the poor hen under the compost pile, and nailed the windows shut.

Last night, when we went out to shut off the water on the garden, something shot out from behind the coop, nails skittering on the concrete barn yard, and disappeared under the old cattle feeder.  It was dark, and fast, not lumbering the way a skunk or raccoon does. 

All chickens are accounted for this morning.  It seems we have thwarted him for now.  Shawn is borrowing a live trap from work, and that will be out beside the coop for the night tonight.

Melting

Holy Hell it's hot outside!  I can hardly stand to be out long enough to move the sprinkler on the garden, and the chickens are hiding under the trailer.  It's supposed to break sometime this evening.....let's hope so!

Add Ons

We found an add on Kijiji this morning; 2 year old hens and a rooster, free to a good home.  We picked them up at 6pm.  They couldn't find the other hen, they think she got eaten.  The rooster was HUGE.  The other hen we named Ugly Betty.  The owners said she was molting, but hens generally do that as the days get shorter in the fall.  We got them home, and as expected, the new Rooster and Captain Cluck went head to head.  But, out of nowhere, one of our hens came to his defense.  Both roosters ended up with some cuts and bruises, but it seemed to be settled.  Then as they all came in to roost for the night, new rooster went after our hens.  Now we know why Ugly Betty is pecked.  The rooster is a bully!!  We kicked him out for the night!  It seems mean, but I can't have him going after the hens, and poor Ugly Betty needs to heal.

Awaiting Answers and Business Plans

We are still waiting on an answer from the landlord.  While he ponders, I research.  We have a friend that is starting a grass raised beef business with Shawn's help (more a hobby for him, as his own logistics company is very successful, and affords him the ability to fund his extensive hobbies, though he is dedicated to making this new venture profitable)  He also happens to have some amazing contacts in the city.  I can read and plan and concoct marketing schemes to create a supplemental income, but helping him start his business may be the key to getting ours further than we thought.

He has far more pasture, and room to grow his own hay and grain feed for animals as large as cattle.  Maybe we should leave the bulk of the cattle raising to him. We have about 20 acres, an under utilized woodlot, and as it occurred to me last night, the landlord grows cash crop in the fields behind the barn.  40 acres of the stuff.  Which would significantly reduce the feed bill for pasture raised hogs, and at the same time, the pigs would break up the soil and grind in the corn stalks after harvest, eat cobs off the ground, and fertilize the fields!  Portable electric fencing would give us the ability to rotate them through the harvested fields in the fall, the woodlot in the summer, and have them farrow in the pasture around the house and barn in piggy huts.  Even my dream of having a dairy animal could be put to multiple uses, as there is no way we, as a family, can consume the amount of milk a Jersey can produce in a day.  Breed her to a beef breed.  Leave her calf on for 1 feeding a day, take milk for the family for milk, butter, and cheese, and the rest is an amazing supplement to pigs!

Shawn is a cattle man, but I think I am bringing him around to the fact the amount of land we have available, as well as the cost of breeding stock, would leave us better suited to patured pork.  Partnered with the freind with connections, we could supply both pasture raised pork AND beef.  Though I am still wanting to add in more chickens and heritage turkeys.  Shawn has decided that he can be a tough man, and process chickens himself for our family, instead of sending them out.....that might take some getting used to!

Now if the landlord would just get off the pot!!  He has been a might moody as of late, so we haven't pestered for an answer....

Eggs and Hopes

The hens are laying well, now that they have settled in.  We are getting 3-4 eggs a day from 4 hens, so while we need more hens so the kids can have some eggs to sell, at the very least, we can stop buying eggs for ourselves.  Last night we needed to put up a chicken wire fence around the market garden.  It is the chickens that have been eating the leaves off the newly sprouted bean plants, not bugs like we thought.

The cabbage is taking a hit from little beetles, though.  A friend sent me a recipe yesterday to take care of the little pests naturally, and I am going to give it a try tonight, after I am sure that the rain has passed.   Weeding is a chore that never seems to end.  We have about half weeded by hand now, with a lot of catching up to do, but we felt we couldn't weed much around the rows until we could truly tell what was a seedling, and what was a weed.

And as for hopes, it seems our landlord stopped by on Sunday while we were out, and took a look at the chickens and the market garden, and the feed back yesterday to Shawn was that they thought it looked great, so maybe they are giving weight to our request to use the pasture around the house and barn for a few heifers and pigs.  Fingers crossed!!

Chickens

The search for hens finally netted me some layers!  I waited to long to order from the hatchery, and I would be unable to get any ready to lay hens until August.  I have been faithfully checking Kijiji for birds, but they seem to be scooped up the minute they are listed for sale.  Well, my persistence finally paid off, and we found 4 hens somewhat nearby for sale.  Because of George the JRT, Shawn and I decided it might be best to get a rooster also.  So far, he is pretty mellow, and when the dog gets close, he runs away with the hens, not exactly the warrior we expected.

In the rafters of the barn there are tons of old (really old!) mink cages, leftover from when this farm was run as a fur farm by our landlord's family.  Parker hosed them out with the air compressor, and Maddie filled them with straw for chicken-y comfort.

Reading Material

I started thinking small scale farming before I even left St. Catharines.  I found a book at the libary called "The Dirty Life".  While a little granola for me (heavy horses for a big acreage, and processing your own cattle?!)  The idea was appealing to have a home based, outdoor business.  And this was the first book that grabbed my interest.  No row cropping genetically modified seed, no confined animals pushed full of grain, no huge dairy, or massive pasture operation.  Just enough of each animal and veg to supply their members.

After I read it, I was rather taken with the idea of local food, especially producing our own.  Maybe it wouldn't be business, but at the very least, maybe I could get a little more out of our garden next to the house....maybe get some chickens.  So I treated myself to a stroll through my local Chapter's, and found "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"  The author's family had moved from Phoenix, to a small farm in Virginia.  They decide to give the 100 Mile Diet a try, with most of their food raised on the farm....veg, fruit, chicken, and turkey.

Now I really got to thinking!  I joined the public library here, and for a small town, there are a LOT of books on small, organic, sustainable farming, as well as quite a few on factory farming, modified seed crops, and Big Ag chasing the little guy right out of business.  Searching the blogosphere and Facebook has brought me tons of links and reading material to stock my dreams.  I read "Chick Days", a book on chick to table (either eggs or meat), I found Joel Salatin, who speaks so well in his country drawl, about the treatment of animals and how alternative practices can actually profit both land and farmer.  I watch Food Inc, an amazing documentary.  I discoved Storey Publishing which publishes Ag books, such as Chick Days and Barnheart by Jenna Woginrich, Storey's guide to Raising Sheep/Pigs/ Beef Cattle.

 

And I am spending this rainy day finishing off these two books, which I have been alternating between.  One, aimed more at producing for yourself, and the other, much more technical, talking pasture management, fencing requirements, livestock mix, and business planning.

Now, it would just be nice, if the nice people at Service Canada would finish my UI claim for the summer layoff (they are already 2.5 weeks longer than their promised time frame of 4 weeks to process) and pay me, I can stop having anxiety attacks, and move on with the next plan....how to pay for livestock, when to get it, and who our customers will be.

Rain

At last, I don't need to rotate the sprinkler all day over the vegetable garden!  We are finally getting the rain the ground needed.  And it is a perfect rain at that,  slow and light, not flooding out the seedlings.  I hope it makes the last of the seeds sprout.  The carrots, onions, green beans, chard, endive, peas, radishes, and cabbage, have popped up out of the soil.  I am surprised the lettuce is taking so long though, and when we were weeding last night, it became obvious that the yellow beans have somehow disappeared.
We have decided that we will just reseed those, it's still early enough.  But the onions have only spouted a small portion of the 300 planted, so I am going to have to just bite the bullet for this year, and buy started plants from the garden center.

You can't really see the rain in this picture, but I think the grey sky and the lush green shows we are finally getting a little wet love from Mother Nature.

Exercise and Seedings

I think Shawn placed the new garden behind the barn to help get my sorry ass back into shape.  The new water line he pulled through the barn and out the back is a great help, but I still move the hose 5 times to cover the garden!!  If we go bigger next year, we may have to look into an actual irrigation system, not just a 100' hose and a lawn sprinkler.

The onions are going to end up replaced, very little is coming up, BUT, the cabbage, carrots, chard, chicory, and radishes are popping up through the soil!  Soon, weeding will be easier, because the plants will look like plants, not yet another weed popping up in the garden.

'scuse me, I gotta trudge back out and move the hose.  The peppers need water.

Dreaming

Sometimes the worst is the not knowing.  No matter how bad I want this re-start for my family, when you are renting and living pretty close to the bone, dreams of even a small scale homestead can just seem to far away to grasp.

I have read just about all I can read.  I have scoured the internet for information.  I ask questions of those with experience.  My daughter joined 4-H, and takes riding lessons, and while she is doing her thing, I am peppering the families with farms with questions.

We have built an awesome coop.  Because my ex-husband doesn't pay his child support, times are tight, and I am afraid that getting chickens for it will take longer than I hoped.  But on the bright side, my dreaming companion Shawn, had a vision of scrap lumber, and at the very least, we have an amazing coop, awaiting occupants.

 The garden is in, thanks to a borrowed tractor.  The soil is in great shape, it is behind the barn, where for several years, the field was used as cow pasture.  The weeds are a pain in the butt to say the least, though.  It was pasture grass, and that is pretty hardy stuff.  Despite being plowed under 5 times, it is making a come back!